Consumer Advocates Are Suing Quackenbush

A consumer advocacy group has sued state Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, saying he failed to give adequate public notice of insurance company rate changes on nearly 10,000 occasions.

The Santa Monica-based Proposition 103 Enforcement Project charged in a lawsuit filed Monday that the California Insurance Department failed to give the required 45-day notice in 9,717 cases involving many kinds of insurance.

The group said Quackenbush gave no notice at all on 251 occasions, announcing the rate applications on the same day he approved them.

An insurance department spokeswoman said the department sometimes expedited rate decrease approvals but that consumers could request hearings to have the decisions reviewed.

“This anti-consumer group apparently wants us to hold up approvals and delay savings to consumers,” said spokeswoman Dana Spurrier.

The consumer group downloaded the department’s notices from its Web site, entering the information into a database and then comparing the notice of a proposed rate change with the date of implementation.

The group charged that in addition to shortchanging the public’s comment period, Quackenbush abused a loophole designed to speed smaller rate changes through the application process. The department gave notice of rate changes of less than 7%, the maximum allowed to escape the public-comment requirements, but ultimately approved a change of greater than 7%, according to the lawsuit.

The department also approved increases for companies that had announced a planned decrease, said project attorney Lillian Sallinger. Sallinger said the department published a notice that USAA had applied for a 10% rate decrease, for example, but ultimately approved a 10% increase.